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A Call Worth Missing

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Ringu (1998)

Pulse (2001)

Dark Water (2002)

Ju-on (2000)

One Missed Call 2 (2005)

It may be fading now, but Asian horror films, predominantly Japanese horror films, have had a pretty good representation on American shores of late. Prior to the turn of the century, American audiences usually thought of Godzilla-style rubber monsters when thinking of Japanese horror cinema, and most never even thought of Chinese or Korean cinema at all. That all changed in 1998, when word started to get back to adventurous horror fans of what was being touted as a completely original and utterly frightening film from Japan called Ringu. In 2002 the sub-genre burst into the mainstream consciousness when Ringu got a first class Hollywood remake courtesy of director Gore Verbinski. Say what you will about remakes in general, and I don't mean any disrespect to the original, but the American remake was a perfect translation, a great way to take the horror sensibilities from Japan and inject them into American cinema. It was familiar enough to not be offputting, but different enough to scare the bejesus out of unsuspecting audiences used to the current lackluster Hollywood offerings. The success of The Ring meant that more would be coming, and we soon got American remakes of top Asian horror films such as Ju On(AKA the Grudge) and Dark Water. At the same time, for those purists interested in originals only, and those simply looking for more scares, the home video market was bursting with Asian imports.

The halfassed remakes that made it to theatres, the knock off films that followed the popularity of The Ring, and the overwhelming similarities between many Asian horror films, all led to the decline of the Asian horror boom. But waning popularity in America does not mean the market is entirely gone, and horror films remain a prominent export from eastern shores. One of those films testifying to the continuing J-Horror trend is One Missed Call 2, the sequel to the 2003 film from wildly divisive director Miike Takashi. And really, your enjoyment of this film is going to depend on your tolerance for logic-defying bullshit twist endings and halfassed philosophizing.

The problem with the original One Missed Call was that it came to the game a bit late. By the time it was released there had already been 5 years of horror films dealing with haunted technology and creepy long haired women. It was Miike's most generic and standard film, but he still managed to inject it with flashes of his own gonzo sensibilities(there's a scene of a ghostly murder captured live in a television studio that had my jaw in my lap). Made without Miike's involvement, One Missed Call 2 is no less well made, but has virtually no trace of the style which attempted to make the original stand out.

Most of the problem in this film comes from what plagued the original; a sense of 'been there, done that', with every stereotype from Asian horror cinema making an appearance, like a J-Horror best-of. There's the pale woman with long hair covering most of her face, slithering jerkily out of a well(the Ring) or sliding headfirst after her victim down a flight of stairs(Ju On), the creepy pale child(Ring, Ju On, Dark Water, Every Japanese Horror Movie Since 1998), and a general fear of technology that seems specific to Asia. Not that other countries don't have their own fears of technology, but it seems to manifest itself in a very specific way in Japanese cinema. In Buddhism, hate, anger, sadness and negativity aren't just emotions, they are physical ailments that can be passed on like a virus(think of Princess Mononoke where the hero has an ever growing wound from the mere touch of an angry boar-god), and as technology increases humanity's networking capabilities, it also increases our susceptibility to these curses. It's how we got the haunted video tape in Ringu, the haunted Internet in the excellent(and underseen) Pulse, and here the haunted cell phone in One Missed Call.

The basic premise is that you get a phone call, which on your caller ID is listed as you, three days in the future. On this call you hear your own death, and three days later you die. More so than Ringu, this setup has a built in fatalism, a sense of hopelessness against your own doom, that the first one was wise enough to capitalize on. The sequel, however, changes the rules a bit, and it no longer seems as dangerous to get that call, with it's creepy music-box ringtone. The virus, to continue a metaphor, has mutated, which explains how it's continued on from the first movie. The phone call no longer kills only it's intended victim, but anyone who happens to answer/hear the message, and getting the call no longer means certain death. A disregard for it's own internal logic is another mark against this film.

Without this inevitability, the film loses most of the tension inherent in the series, and must depend on carefully crafted scare scenes to spook the audience. And it does have those. Unfortunately the film never can escape the fact that everything we're seeing has been done before, many many times. One Missed Call 2 is slicker, more appealingly made than most of this sort of stuff out there, but it still falls short of the films it apes. However, enough time has passed between this film and it's predecessors that these stereotypes gave me a slight shiver of nostalgic horror, and they unfold in a way that I can admire and enjoy without actually being moved by them. All of this is ruined, however, by a twist ending that confused and angered me to such a degree that it almost rivals the ending to Mindhunters in sheer frustration(see my review of THAT film by clicking the title). I won't reveal it all here, for those of you interested in watching this series, but it will suffice to say that I no longer know who lives and who dies, who the killer is, or even if there was a killer. This may all lead up to the third movie(already released), but my suspicion is that the filmmakers thought they were totally blowing the audiences minds, not just confusing them into apathy.

I tried for awhile to think of what to rate this film, and whether or not to tell people I liked it, because to say I hated it would be untrue, nor was I bored by it; the film kept me interested once it got going. But then, I wouldn't say I liked it either, or that I'm neutral about it, because I have some very strong opinions about it. It's an odd film that straddles all of those categories. In the end, though, I honestly can't recommend it to anyone. Hardcore Asian horror fans may find some gems in there, but they'll also most likely be bored by all too familiar scenery. Beginners might enjoy it, but I'd really suggest they look elsewhere(perhaps to the predecessors I mentioned above) for their introduction to this subgenre.

Posted Friday, August 31, 2007 8:07 PM by TheWorkingDead | with 0 comments

Marie Antoinette

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Marie Antoinette (2006)

This weekend the Girlfriend and I sat down to watch, with some small amount of excitement, Marie Antoinette. The excitement came from director Sofia Coppola, of whom I would consider myself a fan after her first two, amazing films. The Virgin Suicides, which I was completely ready to dislike, ended up being a haunting, melancholy and beautiful meditation on that last summer before discovering sex and 'growing up', with an absolutely brilliant soundtrack. The scene where the boys call the isolated Lisbon girls and they hold an entire conversation using only the records they play into the phone was one of the best uses of popular songs in a movie I've seen in awhile. Lost In Translation was, to me, even better, with a bittersweet romance that is no less real because it is never consummated. In fact, it feels more genuine because the two main characters, so obviously falling in love with each other, never become physical. The relationship between Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson is one of those fleeting romances that is so important because of it's fleeting nature, inspired as much by time place as by actual attraction.

Sofia Coppola's two big obsessions would be women ignored or mistreated, and the way time and place informs her characters. Indeed, from Virgin Suicides to Lost In Translation time and place became more important, and the character's less exposed. This doesn't mean that the characters were ill-defined, merely that the specifics of their lives were conveyed in very small, but illuminating moments, whereas the location of Tokyo became a main character itself. Ms. Coppola continues this trend in Marie Antoinette, the first of her films that I didn't downright love. Where Lost in Translation had very well defined characters and silences that were just as expressive as dialogue, Marie Antoinette treats it's characters as vague place holders, there to hold the viewers eye as the film explores the place and time.

Dunst, as Marie Antoinette, plays a variation on her character from the Virgin Suicides. A young woman just growing into her sexuality who is kept virtual prisoner, through a combination of personal neglect from her family and husband and nagging attention from various court members. Kirsten Dunst may be a bit too old to be considered on the verge of sexuality, but in a world where thirtysomethings can play high school students, it isn't a big stretch. In the film, Marie Antoinette isn't an elitist, self absorbed snob, uncaring towards the poor and disillusioned just outside her door. Instead she is a young girl, thrown into a world built entirely around providing for her, doing everything for her, and denying her the simple act of dressing herself. In this world, with a husband who will barely acknowledge her, let alone become romantic, and with no real friends only rich, bored hangers on, she retreats into what is deemed acceptable behavior. And this includes overindulging in sweets, jewelry, clothes and shoes. Eventually, as is historically infamous, she becomes a little too indulgent, and people begin to see her as the epitome of everything that is wrong with the French ruling class.

By now you will be aware of the fact that this movie features a soundtrack comprised of 80s pop songs, such as Bow Wow Wow's I Want Candy, and tracks from The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. This is far from the only anachronistic touch. At one point a character is seen wearing a pair of Converse tennis shoes, and the dialogue is never what you would call 'period accurate'. Everyone seems to have a theory as to what this signifies. Roger Ebert eloquently supposed that this was a way to bring the past into the present, because too many period dramas seem to make their characters aware of living in the past, when to them it was always the present. The majority consensus is that this only paints parallels between Marie Antoinette and other rich, spoiled children of today, such as Paris Hilton or Nicole Richie. During a scene in which Marie has a small emotional breakdown to the sounds of the Strokes, I could only imagine that she was born into the wrong era, that she would be much better suited to the 80s. I don't mean this to say she is too 'headstrong' or 'independent' or whatever is usually meant when people say someone was born ahead of their time, I mean simply that in this film, Marie Antoinette is not suited for 1700s France, whereas in our time, she may have actually become a well adjusted young woman, given the chance to live without constant royal interference.

Obviously, this film's view of Marie Antoinette is much more sympathetic than the popular opinion, but it doesn't do a very good job of convincing the audience. Perhaps the film didn't portray her as such a cipher, with no clearly defined desires or wishes other than to be happy and carefree. She isn't alone in this, Louis the XVI might as well be a coat hanger, and the only character who has a clear desire is Asia Argento's Madame du Barry, an ex-prostitute and mistress to the king who is vying for a title.

I think, with Marie Antoinette, I can admire the aesthetics, and appreciate what Ms. Coppola is trying to do, but I don't think I actually enjoyed it. I wouldn't turn down the chance to see it again, and refine my opinion, see if I might have missed something crucial, but I'm not in a huge hurry to do so. For now, I'm willing to lay the fault of my dislike at myself, and say that Sofia Coppola has made an interesting, visually appealing, and watchable movie that I just didn't get.

Posted Monday, August 27, 2007 5:36 AM by TheWorkingDead | with 0 comments

Ten Canoes

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Ten Canoes (2007)

This week's movie was a mild surprise, being about what I expected in terms of content, but happily exceeding my expectations in terms of form. Ten Canoes, the 12th film from Rolf de Heer(born in the Netherlands, raised in Australia since age 8), is easily the best film I've seen yet through this Spout Mavens project. That shouldn't reflect poorly on the other films I've seen- for my thoughts on those you can always read the reviews themselves- but is instead meant as a testament to how enjoyable I found this one.

Calling Ten Canoes a small film would be a bit dismissive. Although it certainly isn't bombastic or tightly paced, it's still an expansive film, with some excellent cinematography that lingers over the Australian wilderness and glides through the scenery and around the actors like one of the titular ten canoes. The film has periodic black and white segments which were well shot, but I think they were a bit unnecessary. I understand the need and desire to make a clear delineation between the two parallel stories, but the overly bright images on screen make the subtitles a bit hard to read at times, and the full color segments are so striking in comparison. Particularly when it comes to the elaborate full body clay makeup the warriors and mystics sometimes don.

The film, in one of those Russian-nesting-doll type stories a la Arabian Nights, is about a man who becomes aware that the youngest of his three wives has become the object of his younger brother Dayindi's affections. On a hunting expedition with several other tribesmen(most unnamed), Minygululu aims to teach young Dayindi a lesson by telling him a story of their ancestors that mirrors their own. In this story within a story, warrior Ridjimaril's younger brother(the brother is played by the same actor in both stories) lusts after his younger wife. This serves as the launching point for several comedic and tragic events, leading to a comedic and tragic ending. Over this, and serving to keep the two stories straight in the audience's mind, is our storyteller. To go any further into the story of the movie would be pointless. In this film it isn't the story that matters, it's the telling. More than a being about the peril's of coveting thy neighbor's(or brother's) wife, this is a movie about storytelling.

Storytelling is an art form that many people like to bemoan the death of, these days, complaining that instead of sitting around a fire and passing stories on to each other, we now sit in front of a flickering screen. This is, I think, a bit of faulty reasoning. Storytelling is still alive, there are still people who travel the nation(or world) telling their stories to new audiences. Also, I think it unjustly maligns movies and television, by dismissing outright the idea that either medium can produce great works of art. Cinema is just as potent a form of storytelling, and it really isn't all that different from more traditional forms. I recall going to see Dancer in the Dark in the theatre, and part of why I fell in love with that film was the theatre experience itself. Often modern movie audiences are just there to kill a friday night, and you can usually hear murmuring and text-messaging around you. In Dancer in the Dark, the entire audience grew silent, and in the end we were inundated with a great, communal wave of grief. A grief that simultaneously fed itself and comforted us, because we were not alone in it. It was the only movie I've been to where no one moved during the end credits, and when we finally did manage to stand and shuffle off into the lobby, everyone's face was wet with tears. It sound awful, but it was one of the best movie-going experiences in my life, and an example of what storytelling can do to a mass audience.

Our storyteller and guide through this film, voiced engagingly by David Gulpilil, is an affable man, clearly in love with his art, and his frequent asides and comments serve to draw you into the tale he is telling. He laughs at jokes onscreen, and often breaks the fourth wall by speaking directly to the audience, taunting us for our impatience with his meandering and old fashioned style of storytelling. And, yes, it does take awhile to get to the point of the story, and maybe the end isn't as climactic as an audience weaned on twist endings and third act reversals would be used to, but again, to complain about that would be missing the mark. Gulpilil, our narrator, makes frequent asides, and goes off on tangents, such as a sequence where the men sit in a circle and discuss their theories about what happened to a missing woman, as the camera shows us each of these scenarios in turn. This may not keep the action moving in a way most modern audiences want, but it fits perfectly into the whole 'gathered around a campfire' feel of the movie. A good storyteller allows his story room to breath, knows when to embellish certain facts, explore certain threads. It's not a style very inherent to film, which may test the patience of some viewers, and infuriate some people, but this is a movie you need to just sit back and experience.

In the end, whatever drawbacks may be seen in this film are outweighed by it's engaging and warm style. It's not big, it's not flashy, it may not even be as big of a crowd pleaser as I seem to be making it out to be, but it's easygoing, gentle style is infectious.

Posted Friday, August 24, 2007 6:56 AM by TheWorkingDead | with 2 comments

The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things

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The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things (2004)

It was with a mixture of trepidation and excitement that I put this weeks screener, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, into my DVD player and hit 'play.' My trepidation came from a few sources; since having a daughter three years ago, and because of my own experiences with an abusive step-dad, I find movies with child abuse difficult to watch. I had heard much about the extreme depths that this film goes to, had heard quite a bit about the source material, and was a bit nervous about how I would react to something that usually affects me so viscerally. On the flipside of that, I was also a bit nervous about the fact that Asia Argento had directed it. Argento's only previous full-length directorial effort was the vaguely autobiographical 'Scarlet Diva,' a film which promised the same soul-searing depths of raw, nasty emotion, yet delivered only mind(and ass) numbing boredom. Still, on the strength of that film, some shorts, and maybe her father's reputation(she is the daughter of Italian horror-master Dario Argento), she's become a favorite among certain indie directors including Gus Van Sant and Abel Ferrara. And maybe because of those same things I'll always be interested in what she does. Also, I have to admit, some of the excitement comes from purely prurient reasons; Asia Argento is, or at least was, smokin' hot. I've had a bit of a crush on her since I saw her get topless in Trauma when I was 16. But then, somewhere in between New Rose Hotel and Land of the Dead, she began taking on the appearance of a hardcore substance abuser. This new look for her actually fits for her role in this film, because that's a very important part of the character.

Based upon the memoir by JT LeRoy, the movie begins immediately with 7 year old Jeremiah being taken from his loving foster family and returned to his biological mother Sarah, played by Asia Argento with an infrequent Tennessee accent. We get absolutely no glimpse of what his life with his foster family was like, although it is clear he loved them and believed them to be his true parents, and it certainly had to be better than life with Sarah. On their first day together she tells him he's unwanted, that he would have been flushed down the toilet if she'd had her way, and then proceeds to give him hard drugs. This is, of course, only the beginning. To cover the litany of abuses in this film would take far to long, so it would be best if you just imagined whatever horrible thing you can happening to a child. Chances are it's in this film. Sarah encourages her one night stands to beat Jeremiah for wetting the bed, dresses him up in her clothing and introduces him at times as her sister, and frequently leaves him in the care of her boyfriends/'johns' for extended periods of time, at one point not showing up for years. And trust me, there's worse to be found between the opening and closing credits.

There's something here that the film never bothers to address; why would Sarah, who so resents her child, continually return to drag him back into her life? She takes him back from his foster parents, but immediately begins to ignore and abuse him. She leaves him with a man who puts him in the hospital through his abuse, but comes back three years later to kidnap him away from his grandparents. Maybe the filmmakers(Asia Argento is writer AND director, so I guess it would be her) assumed this is just something people do, one of those unexplained quirks of the heart, but to trust so implicitly that we won't question why someone who so hates being a mother would keep taking back her child only to ignore or abuse him is a bit lazy.

The beginning of the film, where young Jeremiah is hurled into this nightmarish existence, is the most harrowing part to watch. Eventually, however, the film gets into a pattern where Sarah meets a new guy, has sex in front of Jeremiah, mentally abuses him, does LOTS of drugs, and then leaves. Repeat this about half a dozen times, and the film becomes boring to the point where it becomes a game of spot the cameo; there's Winona Ryder as a clueless social worker! Marilyn Manson as a white trash boyfriend that sexually assaults Jeremiah! Peter Fonda as the ultra-strict head of an ultra-religious family!? One wonders how Asia Argento was able to convince this many name(or almost name) actors and actresses to be in her film(sometimes uncredited), but I imagine it's because they all saw this as the type of 'shocking' project that would garner divisive critical response and murmurs about how daring their involvement was. Or maybe I'm being cynical.

If it sounds like I lost interest in the film, well, it's true. I did. Which is not the reaction I expected to have. I expected to, at the very least, be disgusted, shocked, or depressed by the film. But bored? No, wouldn't have guessed that. Or maybe the problem is with me. This is one of those difficult indie movies that divide audiences at film festivals. The type of film that imparts some vital message about the human condition that I'm just not hard wired to receive. But then, that wouldn't account for the boredom. A film about child abuse shouldn't be this dull. Due to the construct of the book, the movie has no flow, but is instead a series of vignettes. This also makes the movie feel like a shopping list, a recounting of events in a rote chronological order instead of a heartfelt admission. And that, then, is the major, fatal flaw in this film; that it has less emotion than the Dateline special inspired by these events would have.

As a director, though, I do believe Argento has grown. This film shows more stylistic flair than Scarlet Diva, and more confidence behind the camera. At times the camera lingers, and at others it moves with a jittery, manic anxiety as the film sways from stark realism to dark fantasy(Jeremiah frequently hallucinates two red, claymation birds whenever things get particularly trying for him). Some of this may have to do with director of photography Eric Alan Edwards, who's worked on a wide variety of films, including Kids, Knocked Up, My Own Private Idaho, and Crossroads(not the good one with Ralph Macchio, the Britney Spears one), but I'll place enough stock with Argento to actually look forward to her next film.

In 2005 it was revealed that JT LeRoy had never existed, that the autobiographical books were actually written by a woman in her 40s, and public appearances were made by an in-law of hers(this was believed because LeRoy was, according to the 'memoirs', a fairly feminine man attempting to live as a woman). The DVD acknowledges this by having the word 'true' scratched out of the tagline 'based upon a true story by JT LeRoy'. It's an intriguing marketing gimmick, and hints at a different, possibly superior movie waiting out there. I'm not saying this should be remade as a Charlie Kaufmann logic puzzle, but if the movie had acknowledged that 'these events were horrible, things like this happen all the time, but hey, maybe our narrator is flawed', it would have been more compelling. Think Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as an example of a totally heightened movie experience. A 'true' story where most of what is reported didn't actually happen, but the messages and observations remain valid. Usually it's pointless and unfair to say what a movie 'could have been', because a movie is never anything other than what it is, but here it's just too irresistible a thought.

I've tried not to read any reviews of this film, because I didn't want anyone else's opinion to inform my own. Now that I'm done, I plan on rectifying that. However, I did go check out what Ebert had to say, and in the end he gave it a 2 out of 4, as a compromise between horror and admiration, and would not recommend it. I'll shorten that and just not recommend it.

Posted Saturday, August 18, 2007 7:31 PM by TheWorkingDead | with 1 comments

Slither: Close But No Cigar

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Slither (2006)

2 Weeks? Has it really been more than 2 weeks since my last blog post? Of course, I'm being facetious; no one is more aware of how long it's been since my last post than me. It bothers me daily that I haven't updated this thing, and I wish I had a good excuse for my absence. I haven't been too busy at work, I haven't been ill, depressed, or otherwise preoccupied in a way that would interrupt my writing habits, I just haven't been able to write anything. It may be due to the movie I've been attempting to write about; Slither. It's not that I don't have things to say about this film, I do. And it's not that I haven't tried, I have. I've tried almost daily to write about this film, and then my interest just shuts off and I can't continue. It's probably due to the fact that I'm a bit disappointed with this film, and I wish I could give a good reason as to why. My friend Karena(shout out to my homie in lock up, can I get a what what) suggested that I might actually be growing out of my love for silly, cheesy horror films. I can assure you this is categorically false, because silly, cheesy horror movies are something that I enjoy on a regular basis. Just, not really this one. Bear with me as I try to discover why that is.

As a concept, the 2006 horror movie Slither has a slightly convoluted genesis. It draws it's inspiration from the nastiness, craziness, and yes, fun of splatter flicks from the 80s, which themselves drew much of their inspiration of sci-fi/horror flicks from he 50's and early 60's. Go back and take a look, and you'll see that films like Night of the Creeps, Re-Animator and The Evil Dead seem to have much more in common with 50's horror films(with their exaggerated dialog and over the top dramatic punctuations) than they do with the much more recent and obvious progenitors like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the burgeoning slasher genre. And to give it credit, Slither realizes this debt, and pays homage to it by setting the proceedings in an anachronistically quaint Midwestern town that could have been stuck in a time warp the past 5 decades.

That's one of the things that Slither got right, and to give credit where credit is due, a lot of this film is a pretty spot-on homage, hitting most of the marks it aims for. The dialog is more in-line with the current Hollywood vogue for realism, but reaches some nice melodramatic highs("it's a conscious disease!") that recall some great B-Movies, and the score in particular is a great throwback. However, it doesn't quite hit the bulls eye on everything, when all is said and done. I think it has something to do with writer/director James Gunn's background as a writer/star/producer/slave for Troma studios. If you haven't seen a Troma film, well, I can't truly say whether you're lucky or culturally deprived. I myself have a fondness for The Toxic Avenger, but I can't really call any of their films good in a traditional sense. The films are pretty much typified by a 'throw it at a wall, see if it sticks' attitude, veering wildly from joke to joke, gore scene to gore scene in an attempt to offend as many people as possible, with little attention paid to things like plot, acting, or style. And I really do enjoy that sometimes, but for the most part I like things a little more... cohesive in my movies.

To be honest, I wasn't too thrilled with this film in theatres, and re-watching it last week only slightly raised my opinion. I still don't consider it to be a great film, but I was able to appreciate the ride a bit more the second time around. I'm still somewhat at a loss as to exactly why I don't really like this movie, especially since it seems perfect for me. I love this type of movie, and I'm always game for a good monster flick. Too much of today's horror is preoccupied with bland slasher films or knock offs of Asian flicks, so it's refreshing when someone does an honest-to-goodness monster movie. Still, this movie doesn't quite cut it with me, which is a bit of a mystery, since the film seems to do pretty much what it set out to do, and it is fairly enjoyable. I even tried watching the commentary in an attempt to determine what was lacking in the film.

The film throws a liberal amount of comedy into the proceedings, which, by and large, are fairly grim. In this aspect it attempts to be more American Werewolf in London than Scary Movie. The problem is, the non-comedic bits are highly disturbing, making the mix a little uneasy. Take the scene where the recently infected-by-alien-slugs Grant Grant impregnates Brenda, a realistically pitiful, white trash, stay-at-home mom. Brenda's depiction, the fact that it happens in front of her baby, and the overall atmosphere of this scene, draw the disturbing elements out of the field of horror and into the realm of drama. That's not always a bad thing, but it is upsetting to see such a graphic rape scene treated so lightly. But is that enough to make me dislike the entire movie? It's certainly not as upsetting as any of David Cronenberg's films, and I'm a huge fan of most of those.

The main similarity here would be the uncomfortable sexually deviant undertones(and, often, overtones) prevalent in Cronenberg's horror films, most importantly(for our purposes), Shivers. The sexuality and overall unease in that film are light years beyond anything in Slither, so that alone can't be the reason I don't like it. But then again, James Gunn is no David Cronenberg. Cronenberg is pretty much a genius when it comes to how sex is dealt with in his films, making the sexuality such an integral part of the story that it doesn't seem exploitative even in it's most explicit forms. Take A History of Violence, the sex scenes of which leave quite an impression in a very explicit, non-Hollywood way. However, these scenes aren't just fitting, but crucial; they provide a telling glimpse into the inner lives of these two people, and how they've changed throughout the movie. But I digress, we're talking about Slither here, and contrasted with the example I just gave, Slither comes off as crass and a bit unsure of itself. Comedy, horror or drama? James Gunn had the same problem with his remake of Dawn of the Dead(he wrote, but didn't direct). In the middle of an otherwise solid zombie film, there's a scene with a woman giving birth to a baby that may or may not be alive. It's a pretty distressing scene, and fairly effective, until it's ruined by a cheap joke that MAY have been more easily digestible had it not looked so cheesy. This serves as another example of not knowing how to meld tones.

Coming after what I've just explained, the following complaint is going to seem very hypocritical; I don't think Slither goes far enough. The level Slither is trying to reach is a very sick, disgusting, and outrageous one. And I will admit that there's some pretty enjoyably nauseating stuff in there, but when you compare it to Society, Re-Animator, or any of the other splatter films this one tries to evoke, Slither comes off as the most hardcore PG-13 horror movie ever. It feels too slick in it's presentation(however uneven the tone), it doesn't capture the insanity inherent in most of the films it emulates. Slither feels a bit reigned in, as if Mr. Gunn, outside of the protective umbrella afforded by Troma, didn't trust the audience to go along with whatever sick thought entered his mind.

I guess my complaints are a bit vague, and seem a bit unformed to my own eyes, and I suppose I could spend another two weeks trying to pin this down, but really, who cares? In the end my main problem with this movie is probably one I try to avoid; that of expectations. I always try to enter the theatre fresh; I may hype a movie up before I see it, but once those lights go down I'm ready for whatever the filmmaker chooses to throw at me. In this case I guess I couldn't avoid it. It's a genre I love, from a filmmaker who's work showed promise, and the film was promising to go all out in it's attempts to disgust and amuse you, but in the end it was unfortunately middle of the road. I can't say this is a bad movie, and by all means you should go and check it out, it's worth it, but it's not something I think will find a lasting place in my collection.

Posted Tuesday, August 07, 2007 5:32 AM by TheWorkingDead | with 0 comments

Dead Heat

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Dead Heat (1988)

Zombies make everything better. I think I've said this before. Several times. But they do, usually. As crappy as a movie is, zombies would instantly make it better. That's not to say there aren't shitty zombie movies. There are. But with very few exceptions(Tombs of the Blind Dead 1&2, Zombie Lake) I've enjoyed them immensely on one level or another. Even Hell of the Living Dead, which is widely regarded one of the worst zombie movies ever, still fills me with glee when I recall some of it's absurdly silly scenes of zombie gore. Yes, zombies make even the worst movie tolerable. So it is with Dead Heat, which may not qualify as one of the worst movies ever, but it's certainly not one of the pinnacles of quality cinema. Not that a movie needs to be in order to be a success.

Dead Heat came out in 1988, and is a prime example of that decade's genre film making. It's a decade that usually gets written off for it's cheesy fashions and synth-laden pop music, it's neon-colors and valley girl lingo, but the 80's is a goldmine of forgotten cinematic treasure. I'm not saying that horror cinema has died, or that the quality has gone down since the 80s, but certainly the level of inventiveness isn't there in the mainstream film making anymore. They Live? Big Trouble In Little China? Buckaroo Bonzai? Can you imagine these films getting a green light today? Dead Heat lives up to this tradition in spirit, at least, with a Frankenstein's script cobbled together out of a variety of genres; The buddy-cop-action-comedy-zombie movie.

Treat Williams And Joe Piscopo play two mismatched cops/best friends. The generic odd-couple of action movies. Treat Williams plays the by-the-book suit wearing cop with a car no honest policemen could afford, and Joe Piscopo basically plays Joe Piscopo. Slovenly, prone to violence, and not really as funny as he thinks he is. I've never seen the appeal of Joe Piscopo as a comedic talent, other than his ridiculously muscular arms. He always comes across as that loud uncle who probably drinks too much and has appointed himself the family fool. These two are investigating a series of high profile 'smash and grab' robberies that seem to be committed by one gang of individuals. After pumping an insane amount of lead into two of these gang members, and finally having to off them with a grenade and a moving car, they are told by the coroner that the two men had been dead much longer than they know to be true.

Following the trail of these two men leads them to a pharmaceutical company that seems a bit shady. And rightfully so; during this visit Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo are attacked by a hideously deformed giant of a man, and Treat Williams is killed. That's not as much of a spoiler as you might think; Treat Williams' character is named 'Roger Mortis'. What does the distraught Joe Piscopo do? Well, he finds a machine that can reanimate dead tissue, and sticks his friend into it, who comes out good as new. Almost. The process is still imperfect, and he has only 12 hours to solve his own murder before Roger's tissue degenerates into a puddle of steaming bile. Speaking of which, some note should be paid to the effects in this movie, which are better than you would expect from a movie of this perceived quality. The effects were done by, among others, Nick Benson, who had a whole string of great work in movies of varying quality in the late 80s, including the Blob remake, Tremors, Bride of Re-Animator, and one of the most disgusting movies you've never seen; Society. The highlight set piece is set in a Chinese butcher shop where all of the dead animals on display are reanimated. It's delightfully queasy, and you'll be laughing at the silliness of it while holding back disgust at how gross it all looks.

So, the big question; Does the movie work? As a buddy-cop movie? No, not really, even if the chemistry between the two leads seems more genuine than other, more standard buddy-cop films. As a zombie movie? Well, as has been evidenced I'm very lenient in how I judge a good zombie film. Certainly this isn't your typical zombie film, since the reanimated dead keep much, if not all, of their intelligence and personality, and there's no flesh eating at all. The biggest mistake this movie makes is criminally underusing Vincent Price in a role he could have slept through, and, at times, that's just what he appears to be doing.

So, maybe this doesn't work as a zombie film per se, but I'd still say it works. The film is goofy, and I wouldn't rank it nearly as high as An American Werewolf in London or the Evil Dead movies when it comes to horror comedies, but it's overall pretty damn fun.

Posted Tuesday, August 07, 2007 5:21 AM by TheWorkingDead | with 0 comments